And thanks to everyone who pushed me in the direction of a dual hose conversion again. I'm still not convinced I can make that work in my room & window layout, but considering the heat & energy prices these days I'm going to give it my hardest try. Wish me luck.

Definitely consider this (accidental*) dip to 23.4°C with an outside temperature at 34.5°C (measured on the north facing front) my biggest win of today! 😊

* Why accidental? Too low target temperature set 😬 Doesn't exclusively happen with 3d printers 😅

New backplate for the AC to convert it to a dual hose setup, all parts printed over the last few days and now epoxying together. Thankfully did not have to design this myself, someone already did and shared 👍😊 https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5421906

Just hope it really fits 😅

After just now disassembling the backplate and comparing things directly I'm very optimistic that it will indeed fit 😊

And the new window adapter plate is making progress, almost done, just needs some sealing on top and a coat of varnish 👍

I'm happy to report that it fits great! 😊👍

Next step is weather proofing the outlet setup. So I just got to work on the balcony (last chance for the week to use it, will turn into an oven tomorrow again thanks to the heat), sanding and putting the first coat of varnish on the board.

End result, including some sealing tape on top for a better seal against the shutter. Currently doing a first test run (with the 2nd hose just fiddled through the opening due to lack of an adapter). It was very tough to fiddle two hoses through the limited space, but I won!

Currently the two ports are very close together, so to reduce the likelihood of sucking in the exhaust air the plan is to print two redirection thingies that slot into the little rail there in front of the ports, to direct the airflow to opposite sides.

Will have the added benefit of being able to throw some mosquito netting on those covers to keep insects and debris out of the intake and exhaust. The intake already has got netting on the backplate, but I'd also like to keep the hose clear as I store that inside when not in use.

Printing these almost drove me crazy (adhesion issues, support issues, ...) and they are far from perfect prints (and two iterations of the design), but they fit and work beautifully. Vent covers redirecting the airflow to opposite sides, and mosquito netting behind the fins.

@psy Meins ist eine AEG ChillFlex Pro Silence. Bin damit zufrieden. Kaufkriterium damals war R290 weil nicht so eine ganz so große Umweltsauerei, und einigermaßen erträgliche Geräuschentwicklung (muss ja dabei arbeiten) bei trotzdem guter Kühlleistung.

Wenn ich hier platztechnisch eine bessere Abdichtung nach außen hinbekäme, wäre das Teil glaub ich auch noch geiler. Aber bin da leider durch Layout und Mietersituation etwas limitiert.

@foosel Letzteres ist bei mir leider ähnlich, sonst würde ich mir einfach ein Split-Gerät installieren. Jetzt weiß ich immerhin, dass ich nach R290 schauen will! Und die AEG schau ich mir auch mal an, danke!

@psy Ich hab hier etwas verwinkelt eingebaute Fenster (Niedrigenergiehaus, recht dicke Wände, gekipptes Fenster lässt keine Anschlussmöglichkeit für Schläuche). Daher Balkontür, Brett mit Schlauchanschluss, Rollladen drauf absenken, Balkontür so weit zu wie geht und alles mit einem schweren Vorhang soweit möglich abdichten, Sonnenschirm davor (Südseite ohne Schatten, wenn schon dann richtig). Ist alles andere als ideal, aber es geht hier einfach nicht anders. Schafft immerhin 7-8°C Differenz.

@foosel Oh that's cool! A Graphana dashboard of temperatures around your house?!

How are you collecting the data? Do you have any device recommendations?

@tim I really need to write a blog post about my home automation setup 😅

I have a Home Assistance instance running that interfaces with some self built sensor hardware (ESP8266 + BME680, powered by ESP Home) as well as off the shelf stuff (mostly Zigbee based Aqara multi sensors via Zigbee2MQTT). HA then pushes various data into an InfluxDB from which I then graph it via Grafana. Below is a screenshot of the whole environment dashboard.

@foosel That is incredibly cool! Maybe one day I'll attempt to build something like this!

@foosel @tim zigbee interface connected to a PI 4's Serial/GPIO pins. Zigbee2mqtt & rabbitmq.

Gave up on the standard stuff so got my own code written in go handling most of the automation although zigbee2mqtt does handle some scenes.

@tim @foosel she's not the only one. Only got the zigbee sensors logging currently.

Got to look at sorting the hot room's temp at some point

@tim @foosel https://blog.koehntopp.info/2020/11/15/my-home-sensor-network.html

@tim @foosel Data from https://www.amazon.com/Aqara-WSDCGQ11LM-Temperature-Humidity-Sensor/dp/B07D37FKGY and some official weather station that is available from the web.

@tim @foosel Data from the electricity and gas counter, using the Dutch P1 interface and https://www.zuidwijk.com/product/p1-reader-ethernet/

@tim @foosel Power data from Gosund MQTT enabled plugs.

@foosel Eigentlich ziemlich schlau und kam bisher in meinen Gedanken nicht vor: Man kann ja den Rolladen mitverwenden.
Der hat ein viel angenehmer quadratisches Format als eine angelehnt Tür. 🙂

@lakoja Jup, und das funktioniert hervorragend! Ich hab vor dem Rolladen dann auch noch immer einen Sonnenschirm stehen, und mache innen die Tür soweit zu wie möglich und dichte den Bereich mit dem Vorhang ab. Laut Wärmebildkamera funktioniert dieser Ansatz wirklich gut.

@foosel Stupid question maybe, but why two ducts? Isn't it "just" heat exhaust? Wouldn't one duct be enough for it?
Pardon me please, I don't know much about A/Cs except they are basically heat-exchangers 🙂

@blindcoder Not a stupid question at all! This article sums it up better than I ever could: https://www.woolie.co.uk/article/convert-ac-from-single-hose-to-dual-hose/

But to give a quick tldr, single hose units use inside air for the heat exchange and then pump it outside. That creates a pressure differential in the room that causes hot air from outside of it to be sucked into it. Dual hose setups separate the outside air loop from the inside air loop, which increases efficiency by a lot.

@foosel @blindcoder I wonder why most ACs are still produced without this option. It's not only stupid. Sometimes it's also dangergous and forbidden (for example in cases you are using gas heaters) because of lowering the pressure in the apartment making it possible to suck back exhaust gases.

@foosel Wow, that's some new information to keep in mind, thank you!
Seems my unit can not be converted non-destructively as the entire backplate (including the control panel) is a single piece. Next time I buy one I'll definately check if it's convertible, or comes with two hoses from the start!

@foosel With those pics and your description, in my mind there even pops up another hose on the inlet side which would make it possible to get the inlet air from the coolest part of the balcony...... but yeah, that's probably very superfluos.. just redirecting the wam exhaust air upwards and away from the door will actually already create some updraft in the surrounding air, helping the inlet to possibly catch cooler air on it's own.......

Just my two cents .... erm, glass of wine.. ;)

Nice job!! ;)

@hackbyte You know, that just have me an idea ^^ I just averted a clog of doom earlier tonight, and have some stuff in the queue that beds to be done first, but then I might just look into a custom two sided adapter for the window port, given that I have a couple meters of spare hose

@foosel My only concern with printing the vents would be the heat on the outlet vent - what filament did you use for them?

@peter Extrudr Biofusion, claimed to be mechanically stable up until 75°C. I share the concern, this is a test. If it doesn't work, next attempt will be ASA, though I haven't tried printing with that stuff yet.

@foosel @peter Well, the exhaust air should not even remotely reach 75°C probably... So should be good .... maybe it might sag a bit when exposed to direct sunlight addidional to the exhaust air.... but .. well ;)

@foosel That looks so much better than my improvised solution with a styrofoam box strapped to the unit!

@foosel Hi, kannst das Klimagerät auch heizen (und wie)?